It’s still a work in progress, and I need to tweak some visual elements, add more images, categories, and various other details, but thanks to the glory of WordPress and the wonderful NextGen gallery plugin created by Alex Rabe I’ve easily integrated a gallery into the art section. Go check it out.

Design for the Aequinox advertisement at Manhattan Vintage on April 24th and 25th.

I took some hefty influence from the Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre designs, of which I recently purchased a print. The elements and juxtaposition on this particular piece are of my own doing, however, with some specific tweaks and guidance from Sarah.

If you’re in Manhattan on April 24th, stop by the show and buy some clothes. I’ll be there as well, looking out of place and very likely rather disheveled in contrast with the other attendees.

Edit: Made some modifications, and created a second image. The second was done tonight, this is for the mailing cards.

It’s true. I work in one of them. Dry towns, they’re called, for the uninitiated. These are places that never got around to repealing prohibition and now contain just enough votes against change to hold back the rest of the public from ordering a nice glass of wine with dinner. Why? It will destroy the community, of course!

Well, there is another side of the community that suffers from this mindset: the local business owners. And all the people who want to order a glass of wine and didn’t realize they had to bring their own. Oh yeah, and anyone who is in favor of forward progress.

Okay, Maybe I’m a bit biased.

I was commissioned, through EduComp, for the cause – to design a website to showcase the language of those working toward legislation that would allow beer and wine consumption at restaurants in one such town: Tisbury, otherwise known as Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts.

I should note that personally, I drink very little, perhaps one or two beers or a glass of wine in a month, although, like many, I went through a typical teenage binge phase. I blame the heat and madenning peer pressure of Savannah, Georgia. That’s beside the point, however: the legislation would be good for the town. As it stands, people can bring their own beer or wine to dinner, so the drunks are just as able to get drunk. If anything, this would be more regulatory, and it provides those who want to have a drink at a restaurant that option. I have had a lot of trouble understanding the logic behind the fight against it, aside from stubborn traditionalism.

Consider this a call to anyone who lives in Tisbury: please vote on this on April 14th. It’s a town meeting vote to get it on the ballot in 2010. It needs your help to pass. For more information, and some words from those involved in attempting to pass the legislation, visit the site itself: PreservingTisburysFuture.com

I will have a more comprehensive post in the web section about the process of the design of the site soon, and about upcoming websites, when they go live.

brainwaves from ZF FILMS on Vimeo.

@brainwashedcom – (as in brainwashed.com – home of the brainwaves festival) one of my all time favorite music news sources, touching upon the darker side of my listening soul, has joined the land of twitter. I attented Brainwaves in 08 and was deeply thrilled to finally see some of my old favorites: Peter Christopherson, Meat Beat Manifesto, Matmos, and Stars of the Lid. I was also introduced to some musicians such as Marissa Nadler, Glenn Jones (who I met there and learned he’d had his album worked on by one of my childhood friends and classmates, Anthony Esposito), Boduf Songs, His Name Is Alive and many others that enticed me. Brainwashed has always been at the forefront of musical discovery, finding and helping bring success to those bands that eventually grew to relative stardom (Antony, Amanda Palmer, Devendra Banhart, and on and on) but often being overlooked by the powers that they inspire.

Brainwashed deserves credit for pulling culture out of the cracks and feeding it to many who desperately need it, and while that occasionally comes with a low dosage of condescension, their reviews and headlines are usually surprisingly optimistic and pleasant, rarely crucifying their subjects. For a counter-culture online publication with a dedicated base of rabid, often darkly dressed fans, that’s quite impressive.

The bottom line is: if you want to be a step ahead of the music scene, pay attention to brainwashed. Listen to their podcasts. I too have been guilty of ignoring them from time to time, and for that I always kick myself. On their site, they are currently wondering what they’re going to do with twitter. If you’re listening, brainwashed: keep us informed. Remind us when you update, tell us when there are brainwashed bands playing shows, tell us when the DVD is coming, let us know whenever you see Gary Wilson covering himself with baby powder. Tell us pretty much anything, we’ll listen.

By the way, I must show pride, I got this shirt at Brainwavesfest2008 and I am in love. Thanks kranky.

Okay, I don’t know if anyone who reads my posts will care about this aside from me, but I was excited yesterday when, on a whim, I decided to hunt for news about one of my favorite musicians, discovered back in 1995 when Trent Reznor was pimping him on Nothing Records, Kevin McMahon, aka Prick, aka Lucky Pierre, aka Fear of Blue, aka a million other pseudonyms (really Kevin, you need to stick to a name if you want to sell records) is still making music! He has a new song, that I won’t post here for the sake of keeping myself from potential trouble with the man, I’ll only say that it’s good, despite being extremely different.

For the uninitiated, Prick was sort of a one hit wonder with “Animal” back when “Closer” was the talk of the town, but the radio loving public failed to realize that the man behind the music was incredibly talented and diverse. Well, perhaps not failed to realize, but failed to care. His reclusiveness and general disgust with record labels didn’t win him any popularity contests either, but he continued to make music. He takes a notoriously long time between releases, but, and this is what I love: he dares to do something completely different every time.

To me, the most exciting musicians are those who refuse to conform to a style. Granted, there are those that do who I dearly love, and there is something to be said for getting a nice little package full of something you expect and are comforted by, but surprises are fun too, and I like to be challenged and blindsided by the music I listen to.

This is where Kevin McMahon comes in. He drops bombs of unpredictability not just with every album he releases, but every song within these albums. And he manages to do so while writing some of the most catchy, poppy songs I’ve ever heard. He is truly masterful, and I only wish he would come out of hiding more often, and maybe drop some of the Pseudonyms: the really big fans will listen to and love everything you release, Kevin. You don’t need to call it by different names, and you confuse our MP3 players in doing so!

Anyway, enough ranting. I found the man, and this website devoted to his music, and wanted to trumpet it to the world, or at least the world that has found this website. I also want to have something here to remind myself to keep checking in with the man behind some of my favorite songs.

A snippet from the recent interview to whet whistles:

The reason I haven’t pursued a recording contract after the Interscope/Nothing deal is mainly to assure myself the freedom that was jeopardized by entering into that experience. Record labels want/demand that you remain in the style of the previous release and give your fans what they “expect”. I don’t agree with that. I know there is a method to their marketing madness, but I’m more interested in songs as an expression of changing perspective or spontaneous fun rather than the same old soda with a different bubble… Even though many fans are lost along the way, I believe those who stay are in for a richer and more interesting experience.

Read the rest here.

(Art by Roger Von Golling – if anyone has a site link for him please comment, he’s awesome too)

Wolfie is 13 and goes to the Public Charter School on Martha’s Vineyard (oh hey, that’s him right there on the front page), and he does a rockin radio show on WVVY on Wednesdays at 1 PM for an hour. I’ve been recording his episodes, you can check out past ones in the Radio section. Today I had a scare, thinking the station was going to be down, but I slyly found a stream and was able to get it recorded. Here it is. 128kbps MP3 this time:

Wolfie – Strange Ways in 4D March 25th 2009

The next biggest news out of Stockholm since the Pirate Bay Trial is that Aequinox Vintage Clothing of Oak Bluffs is doing a trade show there (okay, maybe not the biggest, but big okay?)

Saturday, with Sarah Goodhart’s guidance, I designed a card advertising her upcoming web store. (With Swedish Babelfish) It was a quick design, but in crowd tests it was received by the ladies as “very cute!” A success if I ever had one! Good luck in Sweden, Sarah.

Link: Article about the show

Okay I suppose this post doesn’t work if you’re looking at an RSS feed, but anyway, my pride:

Just tossed the twitter feed on my blog. And hey, it works, how bout that!

Hooray technology.

Went to an informative seminar by Julie Roads of Writing Roads this morning and, despite my familiarity with Facebook, Blogs, Myspace, and other such sites beyond the scope of the lesson, and those taking it, I was glad to learn a little bit more about Twitter and gain an understanding of why it is catching on with more force than the rest of such networking sites. I won’t bore you with the details, as there are plenty of pro-twitter propaganda sites to go around, I only intended to say that I will be getting more involved with it. I have a twitter username (maurydegeofroy) that, currently, has only one post: questioning why I signed up in the first place. Now that I have discovered why, I will be working toward integrating it more into this site (most likely as a blog widget), and expanding twitter base, or whatever it’s called, to reach and be reached by more people. Yeah. More to come.

This was tonight’s show. The news/blog will be updated with a recording of the episode as soon as it is edited and ready for sharing.

1. Grizzly Bear – Southern Point
2. Royskopp – Happy Up Here
3. Joseph Nothing – Disc O’ Nostalgia
4. Tim Exile – Pay Tomorrow
5. Fever Ray – Seven
6. The National – Without Permission
7. Sufjan Stevens – Supercomputer
8. Grizzly Bear – Cheerleader
9. Bonnie “Prince Billy – Beware Your Only Friend
10. Minotaur Shock – Accelerated Footage
11. Royskopp – Tricky Tricky
12. Tim Exile – Carouselle
13. Beck – Bonfire Blondes
14. The Books – Be Good To Them Always
15. Mark Eitzel – Proclaim Your Joy
16. Telefon Tel Aviv – The Birds
17. M83 – Skin of the Night
18. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – The Tenure Itch
19. Portishead – Deep Water
20. Radiohead – Last Flowers
21. Of Montreal – Bunny Ain’t No Kind of Rider
22. Microphones – I Felt Your Shape
23. Bonnie “Prince” Billy – I Won’t Ask Again
24. Grizzly Bear – While You Wait For The Others
25. Angels of Light – New York Girls